


In My Sleep

by randomcheeses



Series: Sleeping [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Shounen-ai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-12
Updated: 2010-07-12
Packaged: 2017-10-10 12:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomcheeses/pseuds/randomcheeses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed finds a reason to wake up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In My Sleep

Ed felt tired. More tired than he ever had in his life. Which was weird, because he was pretty sure he was already asleep. How could you feel tired when you were asleep? It didn’t make sense. Ed hated when things didn’t make sense.

Ed was vaguely aware that he could feel some pain and hear strange noises, but they were quiet and seemed so far away.

“. . . re . . .ou ins. . . ?!”

That definitely sounded like a voice, Edward thought slowly. A _familiar _voice. Definitely someone he knew, or trusted.

No, Ed’s instincts said fuzzily as they started to wake, he didn’t trust that voice. Well, not very much. But sometimes he thought that they were almost an okay person. Didn’t he?

“What . . .  ible reas. . . hare-brained . . . eme?!"

The voice was still speaking, but Ed couldn’t make out the words properly. He felt as if someone had packed his ears in cotton wool, and his head was beginning to ache. It would be so good to sink deeper into sleep and block the irritating noises out forever. He was so tired. Couldn’t the voice just shut up and let him rest?

“You . . . ‘posed. . . genius!” Ed heard distantly. The voice was louder now. But his ears didn’t feel any better. Was he being shouted at?

_Go away,_ Ed thought tiredly. _I just want to sleep. Leave me alone._

But the voice kept on, louder, but still almost drowned out by the wool that seemed to be covering Ed’s ears.

“Wha . . . yo. . . think?  usin. . . ain. . . all?"

The voice sounded angry and for some reason, Ed felt like he should be grinning. Making the voice angry was always . . . fun. Wasn’t it?

Well, maybe. But not now. Now making it angry just made it interrupt his sleep. And he wanted to sleep. So, so much. _Shut up,_ he willed the voice. _Please shut up? I’ve worked so hard and I’m so tired. Please?_

To Ed’s irritation, his silent pleading had the opposite effect. The voice grew louder again, and even angrier than before. 

’”How dare . . .  do this?!. . . brothe. . .ody back . . . dare. . . leav. .  . now? Alphonse. .  eeds. . . I still . . . Wake _up_. . at’s . . . order Fullmetal!”

Fullmetal? That was a name? Yes. Ed’s other name. And Alphonse. . . important. Alphonse was very important. The most important thing. He was supposed to answer. But he was tired. So tired. Even opening his eyes seemed like too much work. The voice could get lost for all he cared, Ed decided. He was busy having a nap.

And blessedly, the noisy voice seemed to understand him this time. It fell silent. Ed sighed and started to sink back into the soft sleep it had started to tear him from.

And then, “who. .  I kid. . you. . . list . . . my orders?”

The voice was still here. _Go away. . . _Ed thought forlornly. _I’m sleeping. Go away._

But something in him did wake. The voice no longer sounded angry. It was sad. Someone was sad because of him? And _that_ voice? No, Ed thought. That voice wasn’t supposed to sound sad. That voice was supposed to be. . . annoyed, angry, smug, happy. Not sad. Not for Ed.

Something twisted in Ed’s chest and for a moment it hurt to breathe. _Don’t be sad . . ._

“Fullmetal?” the voice said, and now it seemed filled with sudden hope. “Edward? Can you hear me? C’mon kid, give me a sign here!”

_I want to, _Ed thought. But it hurt too much. The more he woke, the more he could feel the pain. Every part of him seemed to be on fire. _I want to. . . to. . . sleep._

He dropped back into sleep with a sigh, and the burning seemed to fade away like a dream. That was better. Pain was bad. He’d had so much of it, more than he could stand, almost. He just wanted it to leave him alone. He felt better asleep, even better than before. There was something. . .

Distantly, Ed felt a warm, calloused hand stroke across his forehead, pushing his hair to the side. It felt so good, he could just stay like this, asleep in the warmth forever.

Then the voice came back, much softer than before. But somehow the words were so much clearer.

“ . . .was so proud. . .  you know,” it said, affection and care filling it.  “. . .always made me proud of you.”

It was hard for Ed to breath again. For some reason, he felt as if he was going to cry.

“. . . how could I be asked not to hope?”

Now he really was going to cry. The voice. . . the voice was _important_ too. Almost as important as Alphonse. The pain was coming back, but Ed ignored it this time. Waking up was more important now, pain be damned.

Slowly, Ed’s brain came out of the wool it had been wrapped in along with his ears, losing the memory of the dreamlike world of phantom voices and tiredness as he struggled to wake up. He could hear a man talking, someone familiar. Bastard. Mustang. Something about scorching people. The pyromaniac. There was a smell, too. Disinfectant. Tightly wrapped cloth around his limbs. Small patches on his face. That meant. . . hospital? Fuck.

Mustang was still talking, but in Ed’s determination to wake up, he had lost track of the man’s words. What was the Colonel saying now?

                                                             
“. . . you impossible brat.”

Ed tried to frown, but his facial muscles wouldn’t co-operate. He was in a bed, probably a hospital bed, he guessed, now that his brain finally seemed to work again. _And the bastard is insulting me? Screw you Mustang! Just wait till I get my eyes – aargh, they feel like they’re taped shut – open!_

"But the doctor’s right, isn’t he?” he heard Mustang say in a tone that seemed almost dead. “There’s nothing anyone could do. Only you, and you’re . . .” Mustang’s voice trailed off and Ed, who, for some reason he couldn’t quite understand, couldn’t bear to hear the Colonel say anything more in a voice so devoid of any feeling, finally managed to crack an eye open.

The first thing he saw was the Colonel, with an incredibly gratifying look of shock on his face (and why the hell were the man’s eyes all red? Had he been cutting onions?) with his hand raised, jerking away from Ed’s face. _Bastard was probably going to slap me awake,_ Ed thought suspiciously, giving Mustang a hostile glare.

“That doctor’s . . . full of . . . shit, Mustang,” Ed managed to say, though it felt like someone had poured glue down his throat and left it to dry. “Now shut up for go’ssake. I’m tryin’ to rest here.”

With that, he shut his eyes, determined to get some sleep and not get out of bed until Al came to drag him out. Speaking of Al, where the heck was he anyway? He usually wouldn’t move from the room whenever Ed ended up in the hospital. Probably went out to play with a kitten, Ed decided, forgoing the whereabouts of Al in favour of proper sleep.

To his surprise, the next sound he heard was a laugh. The Colonel, he of sarcastic quips and putdowns, who barely ever cracked more than his ever-present smirk in Ed’s presence, was laughing. Deep belly laughs, that sounded more like they should belong to Major Armstrong, filled the room.

_Well, great,_ Ed thought angrily, _I’m glad my apparent need for a hospital visit is so amusing, you damn Colonel._ He opened his eyes again, and glared at the laughing bastard. “Thought I told you to shut up.”

###

  
After the Colonel had gone and a white-coated doctor with a nervous expression and a scorch stain on his pants came to give him a check up, Ed took a careful look around the room. It was plain, with white-washed walls, the bed, one bedside cupboard which probably held his clothes, and a chair. The door had been shut, and Mustang had been sitting in the chair.

_Must’ve imagined it then,_ Ed thought, with a disappointment he would never, ever, admit to feeling. _Guess there was no one here but the Colonel._

The words . . . _I was so proud of you. . . how could I be asked not to hope. . . _the gentle touch of a calloused hand on his forehead, wiping his hair out of his face . . .

No way that could’ve been the bastard Colonel, right?

Right?


End file.
